Author: Useppa

Come out on June 15th from 11:30-3pm and help us celebrate all of our Club Fathers with a special lunch menu!

Come celebrate the first day of Summer on the longest day of the year with us on June 21st for our Summer Solstice Pool Party.  We will have live music from Stolen Fruit Duo and a Poolside Margarita Bar!!

We are having rate specials also for the weekend from June 20-22.

Marina
Member rate- $1.00 per foot…
Non-Members or guest rate- $2.00 per foot

All Accommodations/Rentals
30% off all rates, Member and non-member/guest rates

Thanks to Captain Mark Futch volunteering his time and Randy Baird volunteering his seaplane, Mike and Karen Albert along with Brian and Mary McColgan were the lucky winners of a ride in a 1941 Grumman Widgeon over Useppa Island.

At the recent Fire Department Fundraiser, one of the donated items was a chance to explore our island neighborhood from the air, watch Tarpon daisy chain off Boca Grande, watch Manatees swim along the beaches, and then, experience an Osprey’s view of our island from the top down.

After the ride, climbing out of the plane, Brian Sninsky, Karen Albert’s nephew said, “This was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.” He spoke for everyone.

Widgeon owners Randy and Patty Baird sipped cocktails sitting in old rocking chairs on the Collier Inn porch looking out over Pine Island Sound. They watched their plane take off and land an hour later. Then they had lunch with Mark Futch and Useppa Chronicle Editor Virginia Amsler before Futch and Amsler went back up in the air on a Tarpon hunt.

Finally, their good deed done, the Bairds and Mark took off one last time, tipping the wings of the World War II plane in good-bye. Useppans on the beach waved back.

Photographs and Story

By UseppaGin

By Laura Stokes, Deputy Chief, EMS

I am in awe of our Useppa Island Community….Completely stupefied and amazed by the residents, the staff, the visitors, and our friends on the mainland.

The Useppa Island Volunteer Fire Company held its Bi-Annual Fundraiser on April 12th,  2014 and raised over $150,000!!  Recently hired for the position of EMS Chief, the UIVFC Fire Board and I had an early, initial goal of raising enough money to purchase 3 key items necessary for our upgrade from a basic life support (BLS) service to an Advanced Life Support (ALS) service.  These three items, a CPR compression system, a state-of-the-art Cardiac Monitor/Defibrillator, and a commercial extrication Stair Chair, would help save valuable time and resources in the treatment and evacuation of the sick or injured.  Additionally, these items would allow your limited medical personnel to multi-task, allowing faster and more complete care.  We exceeded this goal by double only with the assistance of the fantastic people of Useppa Island.

The evening was perfect.  The weather was cooperative with warm temperatures that cooled as the sun dropped from the sky.  The music was upbeat and eclectic.  The decorations, original and hand-created lanterns created by our Art Club members, glowed demurely from the center of the tables.  Bob Havens and Dakota Likewise made sure that our dinners were exceptional.  Perfect!

The entire Island Community contributed to the success of the fundraiser.  Everyone chipped in!  Dinners and vacations were donated, as well as paintings and jewelry… Silent Auction participants danced among each other, vying for the opportunity to fish with Travis or to own the North Dakota Hockey Jersey…. The Wine Grab sold over 40 varied and delectable bottles of reds, whites and every shade in between.  Even the staff members were excited to put their raffle tickets in boxes for a chance to win a bike or a lantern….and win, they did.  The live auction was riddled with laughter, bids and taunts, but ending with a sense of patriotism unparalleled.

Frank, Brady and I marvel daily at our good fortune to have been selected to become a part of your Community.  We watch shooting stars and make our wishes to thrive and succeed in this island paradise.  We wave to our friends, many of whom have become extended family, as our paths cross, but most importantly, we are grateful for the opportunity to use our expertise to help protect our new home.

The success of the fundraiser solidified my belief that the generosity and spirit of this place is without equal, and together, we will stay happy and healthy!

Photographs by UseppaGin

Coach is gone. Useppa’s longtime Membership Director and Croquet Coach Bob Sumwalt died peacefully Tuesday morning. Our 89-year-old friend is at rest.

The Sumwalts were two of the Useppa Island Club’s earliest members and property owners. Barbara fell in love with the island at first sight. Bob, the more cautious of the two, had to be convinced. It was a wild, unmanicured place with overgrown landscape and forlorn, century-old dilapidated buildings, but Barbara saw what developer Gar Beckstead promised. “Bob Sumwalt,” she said, “I have never asked you for anything before. You will buy Useppa for me, or I will buy it myself.” They bought the first lot and built the first new home in the late 70s.

Eventually, when Bob retired from the Singer Corporation, they retired here and Bob became Useppa’s Membership Director in 1986.

Coach, Bob, The Bobster, Dad, Old Guy, Honey…. Bob Sumwalt answered to a lot of names on Useppa and usually with a smile. He was a man of absolute integrity, an old-fashioned gentleman who believed in holding doors open for a lady, looking you in the eye during a conversation, and that a promise made was kept. During the week he was either behind his desk or dressed in whites on the croquet court. On Saturday nights he and Barbara went to the Collier Inn. They sat around the piano singing the old standards with neighbors and friends. Bob drank Scotch, Barbara ice tea in a stem crystal martini glass. They dressed in elegant formality on New Year’s Eve gliding across the dance floor.

Joining them for dinner, there might be a long conversation about Barbara’s passion, the island Museum. It was one Bob had heard before, but you would never have known by the rapt and attentive way he listened. And then there might be an equally long repetitive one about croquet, with Barbara listening as though for the first time.

When asked about the secret of their good marriage, Bob responded with one word. “Kindness. We’ve both been married before and we know how important that is.”

Bob was the father of Useppa Croquet teaching most of us on the island how to play. The first Nine Wicket Tournament was in 1978 and among the players were the Becksteads, John Coyle, and the Sumwalts. In 1989 the first Six Wicket Tournament was held and again the Sumwalts and Becksteads played along with Billy Mills and others. White hats, white clothes, dignified reserve on the lawn.

In 2003 Coach became “The Bobster,” red hats were worn, and Golf Croquet was added at the urging of the O’Connells, the Burns and Cody Davis.  Depending on your point of view, the solemn grace of six wicket and the good-hearted sportsmanship of nine wicket were either enhanced by or tarnished by this raucous addition. Now all three versions of the sport are played on the G. Robert Sumwalt Lawn with equal pleasure, the raucousness toned down a bit, the laughter audible, and good sportsmanship in all.

Coach was meticulous in his tournament pairings. It was never about winning, but for the better player to make the day fun for a less experienced partner. It says something about Bob that on Useppa he never won a singles trophy, but he won doubles, partnered with young players just beginning, or older people new to the game.

Bob was a man we could trust with our hearts, the vulnerable sides of ourselves. He never let a friend down. He cared for Barbara as her Alzheimer’s made staying on Useppa impossible. He never complained, and as a child reared by strong women in the Depression, he never gave up. He looked at each day as an opportunity.

When Dan O’Connell and I visited him last week, we started singing what the choir sang at the funeral for Dan’s mother. “Amen, Amen, Amen,” and Bob in his hospital bed sang with us. His voice was weak but not his spirit.

Amen to a life well lived.

Hats off to you Coach.

 Photos taken and Bio written by UseppaGin